I am a 65 yr old racer with a long racing history. I have had a history of having an AFIB incident once or twice a year for a decade, usually when I’ve trained hard and going reasonbly well. I dont take medication, just breathe through it until its settles down.
Recently i’ve had AFIB incidents (dont like the phrase “attack”) lasting 10 to 15 minutes which have subsided 10 minutes or so before the start of a CX race. One was in a Yorkshire league and second a week later at a National Trophy in Cumbria. After composing myself the races went relatively well considering I started at a conservatory pace.
Naturally I looked into my previous training and was following the CX Speciality plan at medium volume at the time. There is a lot of VO2 and HIIT sessions, so decided to back off and go “diesel” with a more polarised method of training. Plenty of steady riding with a degree of CX skills work and just one VO2 session a week.
So far so good and after a weekend of no racing ,albeit still at the NW league as Chief Commissaire, I did an hours CX at a North Wales event . Although fast and dry, managed a 3rd place in the O60s and had a HR expected when racing.
I believe older CX racers should note that the TR CX Speciality plan may be too intensive and reserve their high intensity sessions to races and maybe one TR session per week.
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